PokerCreed got their new web page design by running a design contest:

Poker Creed Website Redesign

Check out PokerCreed's Web page design contest…

The Brief

Industry

Games & Recreational

About us

We are a new revolutionary Poker School, which deals with interactive coaching sessions where people can join in real time and ask their own questions. This is quite a bit different than our competition as they provide mostly videos and/or articles which we provide as well.
We are also completely free, unlike a lot of our compeition. Users earn points by playing at the poker rooms we advertise which they can spend on free coaching.

Homepage;
The homepage is the most important part of the site and the two messages we want to convey is that we are free, and interactive. We are kind of unique and new in this way, and if the design can illustrate this that would be nice too.
The elements that need to be included are:
+ Top Navigation
+ Flash/Java Banner
+ Simple sign-up form (plus simple facebook button)
+ How it works box
+ Poker Room Deals box
+ Refer a Friend
+ Live Chat/Support - visible all the time (not obtrusive)
+ Sign-in bar
+ Languages
+ Search
+ Testimonials
+ Twitter side button
+ Facebook button
General Layout Guidelines
What we thought about was having our logo on the top left, sign-in bar at the top right with language selection, then the top navigation bar.
Underneath the top navigation bar we would have a large banner with about 4-5 slides with a simple sign-up form to the right of it, and either above the banner or below a small testimonials section.
Beneath this we would have a 3 box section of equal size horizontally, with "How it works", "Refer a Friend", and "Poker Deals". Refer a friend should ideally have a cartoon type character (more explained below). Poker Deals should also be themed approprialtey (perhaps using the "party poker" logo somehow.
Then the bottom navigation.
We have also included some rough drafts as well as some old website designs as help.
We would like to say however we are completely open to changes on the layout as we are not designers, so if you think that the elements would be better arranged differently then please do so, we would be very happy to hear suggesstions.
Top Navigation should include:
FAQ
Strategy
Videos
Forum
Timetable
Coaching
Poker Deals
Bottom Navigation should include:
Terms and Conditions
Privacy
Contact
Imprint
Testimonials
We would like a small area where dynamic quotes are shown with their name either directly above or underneath the main banner.
E.G. "Every Serious poker player needs a decent coaching site to become successful" - Phil Ivey
Familiarity to our coaches
We have a few nice photos of our coaches and studies have shown that people are more likely to participate with people if they find them familiar. So we would like these photo/s to be a highlight of the homepage. More importantly our professional player Guillaume de la Gorce is a well known tournament online and live poker player. His name and picture has to be shown before others on the homepage as he is the most important.
We also wanted to have simple avatars/comic characters (simplified versions from this site http://www.videogamesblogger.com) of our 3 coaches so that we can use them thoughout our site. We believe this creates a more personal/interactive atmosphere than just having written text. The characters would also allow us to be more flexible with their placement as we could fit them to any content.
We do not know whether having both photos and these caricatures of the coaches would be too much for the homepage, but perhaps at least a small comic character next to live support and then using the comic characters elsewhere on the other pages would be nice.
Single-Video Page;
This page is where a single video will be shown. However unlike a standard video page we want to include some extra features. We have also some draft designs that we have drawn out. The files are Video page 1.jpg and Video Page 2.jpg.
Example page: http://www.deucescracked.com/videos/12371-Episode-Ten
Directly underneath the video should be a detail section box, this should be the width of the video and include the following details:
Title
Author
Date
Views
Description (This video is the first in the series introducing you to playing 6max No-Limit Poker)
Language Flag
Stakes (Micro Stakes, Small Stakes, Mid Stakes, High Stakes)
Rating (Stars out of 5)
VIP level (we would like a 5 level VIP system, for example bronze to platinum, but if you come up with something interesting please feel free to try)
Game Type (PLO, NL)
Table Size: (Heads-up/Short-Handed/Full Ring)
Teaching Method (Concept/Replayed Hands/Session Video/Past Coaching Video)
Tags
Underneath the Detail box we were thinking about having a two column section large on the left, narrow to right with the following:
On the left wider column we would like to have two tabs where only one can be active at any one time; Questions & Answers, and Forum Discussion.
If the user clicks on questions he will see a list of question and answers only. If the user clicks forum then the content will be replaced with a embedded thread from our phpbb3 forum.
On the right narrow column we will have something to youtubes suggested/related videos.
Dashboard
Whenever a user logs in they will be bought to the dashboard. Here they will have a quick overview , as well as a dashboard navigation which will take them to a particular section of the dashboard with more details. The dashboard will have some dynamic elements so that the user can personalize which elements he would like to have or remove from his dashboard.
Dashboard Navigation:
Points and Rake
My Profile
Subscriptions
Private Messages
Refer a Friend
Overview/Quick Summary:
Points
Next Coaching Session Reminder
Private Messages
General News
New Items are highlighted (old are grey)
New Videos
Recommended Coaching Sessions
Subscribed threads
Recently Answered Questions
New articles

The Brief

Other notes

It is important to mention our target group. We are mainly targeting the younger generation (18-35) probably students and some people with a mathematical/computer science/video game kind of background. However we will want to cater for all types of beginners from all backgrounds, so the design shouldn't be anything to specific/special.
We would like quite a clean light website (white background). Our logos are either red or blue, and of course the website design should compliment this. Our website is about learning so anything that compliments and facilitates this is important.
We are unsure which color scheme to use either we would like just the red or just the blue logo to be used and the site to reflect the logos color scheme. We have also included a black background logo although we want to have a light website theme.
Important: Our professional poker player Guillaume is the guy in the black shirt. So he should be quite visible and his name and that he is a professional poker player should be highlighted somehow.
Please look at all photos and all uploaded material all is very relevant!

$1,195 Silver package

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Full copyright with production-ready files for digital and/or print.

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PDF

It all began with a design brief.

A quick, interactive guide helped them understand their design style and captured exactly what they needed in their web page design.

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Every design category has flexible pricing for all budgets. Web page design starts at $599.

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Client review

Great designer. Listened to all feedback through the process and was quick. Thank you!

tim_kenny

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